When the warm weather hits, everyone wants to be outside. Taking music class outside is not just for games, but you can also work on conceptual learning! Here are three ways to use sidewalk chalk for music class.
Music Twister
Draw a large Twister board or even a few so all students can participate without being on top of each other. Just like regular Twister, spin and call out a color. Add instrument families to the colors or solfege names or rhythm symbols or symbols like crescendo, dynamic symbols, or staff symbols. EX: Right hand brass, or right foot on a green notation symbol. Or even draw small staffs inside each circle to let students practice note names. This would be great to have multiple boards going at once. There were too many options for this one so I didn’t draw it out!
Tip: Don’t color in the circles so students’ hands aren’t covered in chalk.
Giant Music Staff
One of my favorite ways to practice treble clef is to draw a two big staffs on the ground outside and have kids play in races for identification practice. They race to stand on the correct note name. Or they can play in teams sot each stand on a letter to spell a word on the staff. You can read more about how I play this game in this post.
Water Balloon Toss
Draw a HUGE box with 4 squares. Label each one for a different instrument family. Color it in or write lots of little Xs in the box. Let your students throw a water balloon at the box that indicates the right family.
TIP: Do this one student at a time!
Bonus: Big Composition
Have students write 4 or 8 beat rhythms or solfege patterns (or both!) Let them write one huge class composition and then perform it!
I hope that this has given you some ideas on how to get outside with some sidewalk chalk!
